How Netflix, Fetishism & Racism Ruined My Italy Trip

Dear Black Women: Netflix lied to us.

Shows like “From Scratch” and reality TV series like “To Rome for Love” told us Italian men provide the love, protection, and self-worth we’re missing everywhere else.

Yet during my month in Italy, traveling north to south, I didn’t find one Lino, Enzo, or Riccardo with a romantic bone in their body.

Lino in the Netfllix series "From Scratch”.

Instead, I was propositioned as if I were a prostitute in Bologna. In Venice, I asked an Italian guy who approached me what his hobbies were, and he boldly replied “Sex” while laughing.

Not once did I feel men saw me and thought this is love at first sight.

What kind of Black woman should I have shown up as to avoid all this?

Where did the trope of Black women finding love abroad/in Italy come from, anyway?

And what’s the reason why this myth gets perpetuated when it's FAR from reality?

Academics are just as interested as Hollywood producers in whether Black women are marrying European men. A 20-year study found that, except for Eastern Europe (the Baltics), most EU countries showed significantly large percentages of foreigners marrying European natives. It’s some indication that interracial marriages in Europe are on the rise.

So even though DivestmentTube might leave a sour taste in your mouth, there are statistical reasons for discussing or encouraging Black women in interracial relationships.

Examples of Black women on YouTube discussing divestment from Black men.

Stanford Law professor Ralph Richard Banks thinks this is a great thing! In his essay “Why Interracial Marriage Is Good for Black Women” he wrote, “A desirable black man who ends an unsatisfying relationship will find many other women waiting. That’s not true for black women, especially those who limit their relationships to black men.” In his opinion, Black women availing themselves to men outside their race makes them less dependent on Black men to wife them. It gives them greater opportunities to match with higher-earning, more educated, and more faithful partners.

However, Banks also highlighted an OKCupid study that revealed Black women didn’t get as many matches/replies as they should based on the number of matches the app made for them.

The sad thing is that everywhere you are, racism is. As a Black woman, it's inescapable.

Whatever negatively affects people based on race will impact Black women at a disproportionately higher rate. Therefore, there’s no surprise that Black women are less likely to enjoy the perks of swirlconomics.

Maybe Hollywood is capitalizing on our desperation to find love and “level up.” They see a girl dreaming of greener pastures on the lighter side of melanin and turn our fantasies into binge-able series.

But then we’re hit with uncomfortable—sometimes violent—experiences that show us the truth.

Me in Italy.

I wasn’t traveling to Italy specifically to find a man. It’s been on my bucket list because I’m obsessed with Michelangelo, gelato, and heavily seasoned food. I would be lying, though, if I didn’t admit that I thought it would be nice to run into my Italian king at a bistro.

Instead of kings, I attracted every madman who

(a) repeated every incel/manosphere talking point spewed on every red-pill podcast,

(b) wanted their moment to fuck a Black woman, finally, or

(c) had no clue how to interact with a Black woman without relying on cartoonish stereotypes.

On a boat ride, for example, the captain constantly used sexual innuendos like once you go Black, you don’t go back to narrate the tour of ocean caves. You’re probably asking, “How are these two even related???”

And to that, I say YES, unrelated as shit.

He then proceeded to announce to me and other passengers that he’d end our trip “in a special way,” given the American (me) on board. The special way: playing “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees.

And I have to keep my composure, lest we cue in the Sapphire trope. I sat on the boat counting down to when I could scream and punch the air at home, in peace...without being called the angry Black American girl.

I need White men to stop doing this to us.

I interviewed several women born in Italy to African parents about their encounters with Italian men and women. They all wished to remain anonymous but had mutual vexations.

“It gets better sometimes when you show them an American passport, or if you have an American accent,” one woman shared. “But most of the time [Italian men] will assume you’re a sex worker from Nigeria. And their wives will think you’re trying to steal their husbands. Which is so stupid—I don’t want your White man!”

I was listening to an episode of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast in which Dr. Joy and her guest examined negative portrayals of Black women on reality TV dating shows. Their analysis made it abundantly clear: Black women are consistently depicted as the least desirable partners or the contestants most men fetishize but never view as lifelong companions.

The usual culprits for this depiction included Netflix, with shows like “Love is Blind” and “Love Island” placing Black women in demeaning, damn-near manipulative scenarios. One of the most infamous TV debacles involved AD, a Black woman admittedly eager to marry despite seeing any red flags, and Clay, a Black man single handedly encompassing all the relationship red flags.

Clay and AD on the Netflix reality series “Love is Blind”.

Dr. Joy also referenced OWN’s “Ready to Love” as a show that does it right, presenting the all-Black women cast as worthy catches. I watched episodes of the first season and agree, which may mean my only option for finding true love is migrating to Atlanta versus Europe (sheesh).

Cast from the OWN reality TV series “Ready to Love”, based in Atlanta, GA.

I know multiple Black women of American, African, and Caribbean descent in loving relationships with white, European men. They’ve had babies, moved into beautiful homes, and traded the rat race that is dating while Black for family vacations in the Alps.

Some of us are living the dream delivered on screen. I still wonder if TV and movie execs owe us fairer illustrations of our romantic journeys. I worry they’re doing more harm than good when they incessantly greenlight the same boy-meets-Black-girl-in-Italy script that banks on our daydreams.

Well, until they stop making millions off our insecurities or care enough to change the script, let me just say HEY BLACK WOMEN: TAKE AN HONEST LOOK AT WHY YOU’RE WATCHING THESE SERIES. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that, for your mental health, you should avoid them or take off the rose-tinted glasses while viewing them.